Cordelia's Mom, Still

“Capturing the Light”

Sometimes Mother Nature just doesn’t cooperate.

Autumn in Buffalo, New York can be so beautiful.  Every work day I drive down city streets lined with colorful fall foliage.  There’s one section of Winspear Avenue that absolutely takes my breath away, even on cloudy days.  But every day recently, it’s been rainy, cold and gloomy during my morning and evening commute, and even though I carry my little Olympus camera with me, that camera doesn’t do well in low light.  And then, there’s the fact that I recently “cleaned” my windshield and didn’t do a particularly good job of it.  Sure, I could stop the car and get out to take a photograph, but it’s the daily commute and I really just want to get to either work (in the morning) or back home (in the evening).

On days I’m not working, the weather’s been better, but hey, since I’m not working I don’t feel inclined to get up, dress, and drive to Winspear Avenue on my days off.

Such a dilemma.

Add in the fact that I’ve been feeling somewhat depressed recently about my photographic ability.  No one seems to like my recently posted photos, and everyone else seems to be so much more talented.  In fact, there’s one guy on one of my photographic sites who constantly seems to copy my photos – I’ll post a particular scene, and then shortly thereafter he’ll post his own version of that scene (often using the same types of props and staging, if it’s an indoor still-life I’ve tried to create), and his photos are 3 times better than mine.  Every time.

So, if no one likes my work anyway, why bother?  It’s cold, gloomy, and damp – and it’s still the pandemic.  I don’t feel like going out on photo shoots.  I don’t even feel like finding household objects to stage for still-life photos (heck, that guy will only copy those shots and do better at it anyway).

But then – for whatever reason, I decided to check my Pixsy site report.  Pixsy tracks its members’ photos and lets the photographers know if any of those photos have been picked up and used elsewhere.  This provides for some protection against copyright infringement, should any photos be used commercially.

My photos are all are posted under Creative Commons licensing, but I never paid much attention since, heck, no one was looking at them anyway, right?

“Broken”

Pixsy says otherwise.  Several of my photos  have, in fact, been chosen and used under Creative Commons licensing, with the proper credit and link-backs.  Back in February, Wisconsin Public Radio chose my “Broken” photo!  Out of the thousands of photos of broken tree branches shown on Flickr.com, WPR chose mine!

Maybe it’s time to re-think things.  Just because the more professional photographers on Flickr.com and YouPic.com probably scoff at my artistic non-talent, does that mean my work is worthless?  Perhaps not.  Perhaps my appeal is more mundane.  Perhaps, like my writing, I appeal to ordinary folks like myself.  Those photos of mine that were picked up from Flickr.com then appeared mostly on blogs just like mine.

It makes me feel good.

Having reached this new height of self-love, I decided it was time to “just take the damn photos already.”

Here’s Winspear Avenue after the rain on a gloomy autumn morning on my way to work:

“Gloomy Fall in the City”

Perhaps others will enjoy that view, even if I couldn’t wait for a nice, sunny day.

And, finally, since I had the camera with me during Cody’s evening walk, I took the photo at the head of this post, as well as this photo of a willow tree near the Maryvale High School:

“Light Through the Willow”

Sometimes you just need to find a little light through the dimness.

Enjoy the upcoming weekend, folks.

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Images by Cordelia’s Mom/TeddyRosalieStudio